


And Michael Sam too

by Eupraxia (starfireone3)



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Coming Out, Gay Athletes, Gen, M/M, Thanksgiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2014-11-11
Packaged: 2018-02-25 00:37:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2602145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starfireone3/pseuds/Eupraxia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coach Bittle is shocked when one of his players calls him for help, in his shock he suggests that the boy talks to his son.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Coach's Office

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place after Jack's graduated so he's in the NHL even though that's never actually mentioned. And that matters not a whit to the plot.
> 
> Also I am not an athlete.

“Hey, Coach, can we talk?” Coach Bittle looked up from his computer has one of juniors, a varsity player stuck his head in the door. Weston (Timothy) a good, team player who kept his grades up. Coach wondered what the kid needed. He always had time for his players, but this was one of the ones that seemed pretty self-sufficient. 

“Of course, Weston, come in.” Coach pulled up his screen saver and turned his attention to the boy who was shuffling in, having closed the door behind him. 

Weston sank gingerly into the chair across from the desk as if it was made of eggshells. Coach was surprised that the six foot tall over two hundred pound boy could move so delicately; he was a brick in practice and on the field. Coach wondered again what had this kid so tied up in knots.

“Weston, how are you?” Coach peered at the boy as if he could see what was wrong if he stared hard enough.

“I’m alright.” The boy shrugged and shifted in the seat. “I, uh, I heard your, uh, your son was gay.”

Coach stiffened, he wasn’t sure he was ready for where this conversation was going. He wasn’t ready when his own son came out, hurriedly over the phone and quickly hanging up afterwards—no touching heart to heart here, just two men who don’t know how to talk to each other. It wasn’t like he didn’t have warning: the figure skating, the music, the baking, the shorts it all smacked of what the media told him a homosexual was. Weston was the opposite.

Coach managed to get out, “My son is gay.” He still wasn’t quite okay with it. It was another thing that separated him from his son.

Weston nodded, not seeming to notice his Coach’s tension. “And he plays hockey?”

“Yes, he plays hockey.” Coach nodded, this was something he understood, teams and sports.

“How does he do it?” Weston’s look was plaintive, that of a wounded child looking to a trusted adult for help. “Sports guys are so homophobic. I don’t think it would be better if I was out. I think it would be worse.” And for the first time Coach really thinks about the frequency with which his team throws around the word faggot and say “that’s gay” and call people homo and what that might mean to a boy like Weston...or like Eric. It makes his stomach turn and at the thought that he was accomplice to it by letting it go on around him. He gets light headed.

“I’m not sure.” Coach tells the boy, but he’s keeping himself from saying Eric has had better coaches than you do. Eric’s coaches don’t foster the atmosphere on their teams that I have. “I’ll try to do what I can to make things better. To be honest you fit in better than Eric did at your age, but,” he finds himself saying, “Eric comes home for Thanksgiving. If you want you can ask him yourself.”

Weston blinks at him, surprised. “Thanks, Coach, that means a lot. I might take you up on that.” And stands.

“Good.” Coach nods decisively. “Have a good day, Weston.” He watches the boy’s retreating back and realizes that he has been entrusted with a secret and realizing that he had already decided to do right with what had been entrusted to him.


	2. Coach's Son

Weston made his way up the steps, hoping he had the right address. It was black Friday, the day Coach had told him to stop by but the house looked pretty empty. Still he knocked on the front door, hoping someone would answer it. 

And someone did. Weston was instantly put at ease by the sight of a muscular, dark-haired young man, an athlete. Weston wondered why Coach said it was harder for him to fit in. 

“You must be Eric.” He smiled at the young man, who didn’t look a bit like Coach. Maybe he was adopted.

“Eh, No. I’m not.” The young man rubbed the bridge of his nose and Weston flushed. 

“Shit, I must have the wrong house.” Weston grimaced. “I’m looking for Eric Bittle? I wanted to talk to him about something. Coach said he’d be here.”

“Oh, yeah.” The young man nodded. And Weston realized he couldn’t be from around here. He had some sort of accent, French or something. He called over his shoulder, “Some kid wants to talk to you. He looks like kind of freaked out.”

Something inaudible to Weston came out of the house and the young man opened the door wide. “He’s in the kitchen.” Weston entered the house which was charming, lots of soft fabrics and soft touches, Coach’s wife’s touches. It smelled like the holidays inside the Coach’s house, in a way Weston’s home would never be able to live up to. The young man closed the door and led him back to the kitchen. 

In the kitchen (where the holiday cinnamon honey smell was even greater) was a young man, nearly a head shorter than him, rolling flattened dough into pie pans. Weston thought it was a bit late to be making pies, since Thanksgiving was already a day past. Weston could recognize Beyonce’s growl coming from the ipod dock in the corner and had noticed the bakers hips swaying with the music. Now here was someone that wouldn’t fit in, in the traditional sports social circle. This must be Eric. Weston almost left, there was nothing that they had in common. Then he decided against it: he’d come here; he’d see this through.

“Hi. I’m Timothy Weston.” Eric gave him a blank stare. “Coach said I should come over and talk to you.”

Eric snorted, an ungentlemanly huff, “He didn’t say anything to me.” Eric was a line of tension, like he was waiting to be ambushed.

“He said I should talk to you about,” Weston’s eyes darted warily to the dark haired athlete who had situated himself in the corner and steeled himself to continue, “being a gay athlete.” 

All the tension went out Eric and he put the rolling pin down, “Oh, sugar,” he sighed, “You’re going to help me finish these pies and we’re going to talk.” Weston started to move then eyed the dark haired young man in the corner. Bitty flapped a him. “Don’t mind Jack. He’s my boyfriend. He was captain of Samwell’s hockey team, so he might actually have something to add.” Bitty looked searchingly at Weston biting his lower lip. “His experience is probably closer to yours than mine is.”

Weston looked at Jack and nodded; that was probably true.

Bitty passed Weston a bowl of sliced apples, “Layer that in the pie crust for me.” Bitty picked up another bowl full of an orange mixture and started pouring it into the other pie crust. “So what in particular did you want to talk about?”

“It’s just hard.” Weston shrugged. “None of the guys know I’m gay and they talk about gay people like they’re the scum of the earth. I don’t think me coming out would change anything.” 

Bitty nodded. “That’s got to be tough. I was on a co-ed team in high school, so I missed a lot of the straight male machismo homophobic posturing but that didn’t stop the football team from messing with me cause they suspected I was gay.”

“The team messed with you?” Weston’s eyebrows nearly reached his hairline. “But your dad’s the coach.”

“Coach and I. We don’t get along too well.” Bitty started to smooth out the orange filling on his pie with a large wooden spoon. “I think he thought it would toughen me up. I’ve always been a bit delicate for his taste.”

Weston put the last apple slice on the pile and stared long and hard at the slices he had layered. Coach had been okay with the implication that he was gay, more than okay he had set this whole thing up, but somehow it seemed that Eric had not been so lucky.

“When it came time for college, I applied to schools that were the most welcoming and accepting of LGBTQ students. Ended up going to the third most accepting school in the country, the whole hockey team is pretty chill about the gay thing. Ransom & Holster used to actually try and set me up with guys.” Weston could barely believe that, that he might one day have teammates that were so open and welcoming that they would play matchmaker. “I don’t know if I could tell you anything about how to deal with homophobia from the team when you’re on the team.”

“You suck it up and wait for when you can get on that team at that accepting college.” Jack spoke up. “If you want you can speak up. Tell the guys to knock it off and they might listen, if they still think you’re straight. Or they might ignore you as some hippie. Worst case they assume you’re gay and it gets worse and aimed specifically at you.”

Weston nodded. That didn’t sound very hopeful, at least not for the immediate future. Graduation was a year and a half way.

“You can make friends outside the team.” Eric adds. “That Hockey team was probably the best thing that happened to me in high school. If you could join a group outside school, maybe one for gay teens that might help dealing with the football team inside school.”

“I don’t have time for other groups.” Weston watched Eric pick up a pot off the stove and pour a golden liquid mixture that smelled like heaven itself over the apples.

“An online group then.” Eric amended. 

Weston thought about that and decided that it might actually work. There were probably lots of other kids just like him in other towns and cities. They could talk; they could be friends. And when the time came he would bundle off to a school that would accept him when he decided to come out.

Eric rolled the top pie crust out over the apple pie and crimped the crusts. 

“Thanks.” Weston smiled. “That’s a good idea.”

“No problem,” Eric said as he opened the oven and popped the pies inside. 

“Well, uh, I guess I should get going?” Weston made to leave but he didn’t really want to now. Only three people in the world knew he was gay, and two of them were right here and willing to talk about it. 

“Do you think I’m letting you leave, without getting at least one slice of pie in you?” Eric rolled his eyes. “I’m going to clean up in here and then we can play a board game or something or just talk if you want, but you are going to stay.” There was a little smile playing about Jack’s lips as Eric pulled in someone else to mother.

Weston just nodded. “Okay, yeah. I think I can stay.”


End file.
